Le Wen zi: a la lumiere de l'histoire et de l'archeologie (review)

Reviewed by: Le Wen zi à la lumière de l'histoire et de l'archéologie Paul van Els (bio) Charles Le Blanc . Le Wen zi à la lumière de l'histoire et de l'archéologie. Montréal: Les Presses de l'Université de Montréal, 2000. xiii, 175 pp. Paperback EUR22.87, ISBN 2-7606-1783-1. Le Wen zi à la lumière de l'histoire et de l'archéologie by Charles Le Blanc contains a detailed study of the Wen zi (Master Wen, or, in Le Blanc's wording, "le maître raf finé"). This Taoist text was composed more than two thousand years ago and underwent major revisions in the third or fourth century c.e., after which the original version (Le Blanc: "Wen zi ancien") was no longer transmitted. [End Page 426] Much of the content of the revised and transmitted version (Le Blanc: "Wen zi moderne") can be found in other texts, most notably the Huainan zi. In fact, no less than three quarters of the transmitted Wen zi text corresponds to phrases or even entire paragraphs in the Huainan zi. In the eighth century this unusual phenomenon led to a long-term discussion as to the historical priority of the two texts. Many scholars throughout the centuries have favored the historical priority of the Huainan zi, while others, especially since the archaeological discovery of an original Wen zi manuscript in 1973, believe that the Wen zi predates the Huainan zi and, as a consequence, that the latter is copied from the former. Le Blanc's important study puts an end to this centuries-old discussion by showing not only the direction of borrowing, but also, and more importantly, the nature of the borrowing process. The two main objectives of Le Blanc's study are to analyze the relationships (1) between the original Wen zi and the transmitted Wen zi and (2) between the transmitted Wen zi and the Huainan zi. The first objective is expounded in the Introduction. The second objective, expounded in chapter 2, is preceded by and based on the author's translation of chapter 5 of the Wen zi and followed by his translation of writings on the Wen zi by Chinese scholars. In the Introduction, the reader is introduced to the only extant example of the original Wen zi to date: the bamboo slips discovered at Bajiaolang in Ding County (Hebei Province) in 1973. Le Blanc first discusses the dates of the bamboo manuscript (i.e., when it was copied onto the slips and when the slips were buried), then compares the manuscript with the transmitted Wen zi with regard to their structure, ideas, style, and historical context. The remarkable outcome of this comparison is that the original Wen zi and the transmitted Wen zi, despite the fact that the latter was based on the former, are nevertheless two different texts. This conclusion has far-reaching consequences, for we can now no longer speak of "the" Wen zi as a single text. This, of course, also influences our understanding of the Wen zi-Huainan zi relationship. Chapters 1 and 2 form the first part of Le Blanc's book. This part, titled "textual studies," starts with an annotated translation of Wen zi chapter 5, based on the edition of Xu Lingfu (fl. 810-816). The choice of this chapter is anything but arbitrary, for it is the only chapter of which a substantial part corresponds to the bamboo manuscript and of which we have a version on paper from the eighth century, discovered at Dunhuang in 1908. In the Chinese text printed alongside Le Blanc's translation, those phrases that also appear on the bamboo slips are underlined, whereas differences between the Dunhuang and Xu Lingfu editions are mentioned in footnotes. Another reason for choosing this chapter is that it contains large portions of text corresponding to the Huainan zi, which provides ideal material for a critical comparison of the two texts. [End Page 427] The underlying assumption of the critical comparison is that chapter 5 of the transmitted Wen zi is a composite text that can be divided into three mutually exclusive parts: about one third is...

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